


Moonlight Serenade

by burlesquecomposer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, M/M, Swing Dancing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:52:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burlesquecomposer/pseuds/burlesquecomposer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is an up-and-coming singer who's a little too tense. Stiles, a member of a popular swing dance group, offers to help him loosen up using a few tricks of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ["Moonlight Serenade" - Glenn Miller](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92ATE3IgIs)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I know "The Wolf Pack" is totally campy. Slight reference/homage to the Rat Pack?
> 
> -

 

**LA LUNA**

**presents**

**THE WOLF PACK**

**with opening act DEREK HALE**

Derek gazed up at the big bold letters against the bright white background, all lined with flashing lightbulbs that were beginning to burn into his retinas. The performance wasn’t going to start for another two hours, but it was his first big gig and he couldn’t risk a lack of punctuality. That was _his_ name up there. His suit had been pressed not too long ago, hanging in a plastic dry-cleaning bag over his arm, while his body wore a less formal pair of slacks and an untucked oxford. Good thing, too, as at the bar he’d visited before — an attempt to loosen up that not only hadn’t worked but actually succeeded in doing the opposite of what he’d wanted it to do — the stranger beside him managed to accidentally spill half a glass of chardonnay all over his sleeve. 

The Hale boy took a deep breath, held it for a while and counted to ten like Laura had told him to, and released it slowly. The jitters had not settled completely but were at least easier to handle. He swallowed and entered the club. 

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the new set of colored lights. Tassels danced just like their owners, swaying and jumping along the hips and knees of flappers as their heeled feet twisted to the jazz. Derek walked along the side pathway that he’d been told would lead him to the back room, but as he went he watched the sea of people dancing wherever there wasn’t a table. A trail of giggling girls, feather headdresses bouncing after them, dipped past him to snap him out of his dazed reverie. 

Derek couldn’t dance. Not like he was here to dance, anyway. 

Soon he found the back room. He had not personally met with the owner of La Luna – he had only been told about a smile as sharp as her tongue and a tendency to change things as she saw fit at a moment’s notice. That and a neat set of long blonde pin curls. 

Female dancers, as Derek could tell by their shorter, sparkling skirts, passed him by while he made his way to the performance star rooms. Signs were taped over each door. 

“The Wolf Pack” was taped to the first. Derek had only heard of them but never seen a performance – the four-person dance group was hailed as one of the most delightful and exciting performance pieces on the west coast, likened to Rogers and Astaire, and any club was lucky to have them dance; any performer was lucky to be opening for them, too. 

“Just don’t mess it up, Derek,” he muttered to himself as he tried to find the next door. 

“Oh, so you’re Derek.” 

He jumped in his skin and spun to face who he immediately assumed was his temporary boss. 

“Yeah,” Derek coughed. “How long... have you been there?” 

“You seemed a bit lost, I was following to make sure you weren’t after some of our girls,” she said, scanning him over. “They didn’t tell me you have some shadow.” 

Derek self-consciously ran a hand over his cheek and chin, scratching his fingers against his stubble. “Do I, uh, should I shave or something?” 

“Mm. No. It’ll be different. I like a risk-taker.” She stuck her hand out to him. “Erica Reyes.” 

Derek nodded and took her hand, shaking it lightly until she firmly gripped his until her nails scraped his knuckles. 

“Your door is the next one down, to the right. It has your name on it.” 

Derek nodded again, realized he had nodded twice, and spun around to avoid looking even more stupid. He found his door when he looked for it – a “Derek Hale” taped onto the gold star on white painted wood. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the Wolf Pack’s door close. 

His room was small, but this was to be expected. He was only the opening act after all, and a one-man show at that. He found a place to hang up his suit and collapsed into the chair that sat before a brightly lit vanity mirror. Derek didn’t need to put on makeup so the mirror was somewhat useless, but he looked into it anyway to study the stubble lining his jaw. 

Should’ve shaved. Well then. 

After trying to relax in a rather unforgiving chair, Derek did a few of his sister’s breathing exercise recommendations, drank some water, pined over the unavailability of tea or honey to relax his voice, and performed a series of chromatic scale progressions. He’d had a bronchitis scare last week, and though that hadn’t caused any problems, his lungs tightened as if he’d been struck with tuberculosis. 

Soon a sharp knock rattled the door. “You’re on in twenty.” Derek took that as his cue to hurry up into his suit. He gelled his hair and combed it back, stared at himself in the mirror for a while, then went out to the backstage area. 

“Where’s Ms. Reyes?” Derek asked no one in particular. A stagehand overheard and sidestepped into earshot. 

“She doesn’t like being called by her last name, makes her feel old,” the stagehand warned. The interjection surprised Derek as he glanced over at a lanky boy with bright but sunken and somewhat unamused eyes and a square jaw. “She’s busy right now with the Wolf Pack. Just be ready, right? There’ll be a mic out in center stage. You’ll get out there while the curtain’s still down, they’ll say your name, wait until two beats after the curtain is done rising to start. Your voice goes slightly ahead of the band, right?” 

“Right,” Derek managed, head spinning. 

“Good, that’ll be easy for them to follow. They’re quick, easy to adjust.” The boy slapped his back. “Break a leg, that’s what you guys say, isn’t it?” 

Before Derek could give any semblance of an answer, the stagehand was running off to direct some dancers down another hall. He breathed, running a hand flat over his hair one more time. He heard someone shout the number ten, so he assumed that was how much time he had. 

Derek shoved his hands into his pockets to ground himself as he gazed distractedly at the La Luna dancers on stage from behind the back wings. His trance helped him ignore the boy creeping up in front of him until a hand rubbed hard at the top of his head, undoing all the pomade's hard work and effectively tossing Derek’s hair. 

“Hey- What–” 

He lashed out, grasping a wrist before it could do further damage. The wrist’s owner didn’t fight. 

“Eh. Yeah, better,” the boy said, bottom lip turning out in triumph as if proud of himself. Derek counted maybe ten freckles around his mouth before he was moving it again. “Slicked hair looks weird when you’ve got half a beard. Might want to get a hat.” 

“I don’t have half a beard,” Derek grumbled roughly, releasing the boy’s wrist. He soon discovered this was a bad idea, as his hands were back out to fix the nest he’d built in Derek’s hair. He fluffed it until it spiked and slightly curled. Derek fussed, unwilling to keep completely still. 

“Even better. Don’t you ever slick your hair back again, ever, unless you shave.” The boy wiped his pomade-tainted hands on the hips of his slacks. He was wearing a suit and bowtie, which struck Derek as odd. Did he work here too? Derek kept his frown as he stared at the boy until he got it and took a step back. 

“Okay, personal space bubble drawn.” 

Now Derek couldn’t count the rest of his freckles, and this was upsettingly disappointing. 

But at least from a couple feet away he could take note of the boy’s unnaturally dark lashes, the thick eyebrows and strangely shaped nose and artfully mussed brown hair. He seemed thin beneath the suit but Derek was finding it difficult to tell. He frowned when his eyes reached the boy’s shoes. 

“Eyes up here,” the boy joked. “Hey, you’re on in a few minutes, right?” 

Derek’s heart dropped into his stomach. God, he was. Just a few minutes and his career could either take off and soar or crash and burn. At least, that’s what he figured in his head. For a moment he couldn’t even remember what song he was starting with. 

“Hey, don’t worry. First big one’s always scary. Good luck, or break a leg or whatever.” 

Derek turned to respond but the guy had vanished, leaving him with the curtain for company. But he had to put it out of his mind and trust that he’d done right with his hair. 

“Five!” 

Derek wanted to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

If there was one thing Derek had learned about performing, it was that the best way to settle his nerves was usually to look through the crowd rather than at it. Pretend they weren’t there, block out everything else except for the music and his own voice, and it usually worked. Tonight, however, that proved easier said than done. As soon as the curtain rose, Derek noticed that the spotlights didn’t shroud his view of the attendees, a seemingly congruous mass of suits and dresses and expectation. 

The curtain stopped rising. 

 _One, two._  

Derek took the mic into his hand and began with [an old Hoagy Carmichael song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fbOAyNOpM). The band, with their list of his performance compilation, followed suit with soft piano and brushing drum beats. He calmed himself by closing his eyes and letting his fingers drift over the smooth grooved metal of the microphone. Derek’s tenor wasn’t quite the same as Carmichael’s and he didn’t copy; instead, he hoped his own rendition would make something memorable for the crowd. 

He should’ve shaved. Dammit. 

The crowd clapped when he finished; Derek spotted a few couples slow-dancing in each other’s arms and felt proud. 

The rest of the show managed to go smoothly aside from Derek’s consistent nerves. His knees shook a bit and his palms were warm enough to have their own climate but hopefully the crowd hadn’t noticed. As he tapered off his last song, his own spin on Carmichael’s [“Georgia On My Mind”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYRCbCOui8Q) in which he’d replaced Georgia with Laura, Derek allowed himself to give a shaky sort of smile. He barely caught his name being announced once again and a surge of clapping, and he half-bowed half-waved as he left the stage. 

Derek had to fight to hold himself together until the curtain lowered completely and he’d made it to the back room. Desperately remembering to breathe, he took the glass of amber liquid offered by the same stagehand he’d met earlier. 

“You good?” he asked, making sure Derek drank the whole thing. “I can get you a cigarette if you don’t have any, or... I know of this new drug you can take, it’s not on the market yet but it’s safe, s’called Benzo–” 

“I don’t need a sedative,” Derek bit, handing him the glass. 

“You did good.” The stagehand nodded, showing one of his canines when he smiled. “Fine, fine. Stick around for a bit to talk to Erica, but after the Wolf Pack finishes up. She’ll be watching them too.” 

Derek took deep breaths. Finally, he said, “Should’ve shaved.” 

“Yeah, you should’ve shaved.” 

Though he really should have gone back to his room to rest off his anxiety, Derek was met with an overwhelming desire to actually see the act he had opened for. He returned to the back wing, finding a good view so that he could see the stage. 

The Wolf Pack had already started, if the loud upbeat music was anything to go by. He didn’t recognize the melody – it must have been something new – but what he did recognize was a thin figure spinning about with a strawberry blonde at left stage. The two switched places with the other pair, a brunette couple lost in one another. They parted to tap and dance beside one another, facing the cheering crowd before them. 

 _That’s definitely the freckly kid._  

Derek was never one for dancing, but in that moment he was struck with a multitude of responses, particularly confusion and awe. Their feet moved like nothing he’d seen, and each gesture flowed with purpose yet relaxation. Two pairs of legs kicked and stomped, two skirts twirled and swayed, and all four had smiles on their faces as too quickly the performance was finished before Derek could be fully satisfied. 

The confusion settled in then as the curtain fell before the Wolf Pack. They walked in his direction and Derek turned away. Evidently not quickly enough, as he felt a hand tousle his hair again. 

“Hey, Pomade and Scruffles! So you started with Stardust, ah?” 

Derek grimaced, but blinked as he attempted to remember what he was talking about. “Mm.” He nodded in reply. Stardust was one of his favorites and luckily within his range. 

“A man of few words until you get up there, huh?” The freckly kid chuckled to himself. “You did a nice job.” 

“You too,” Derek said in an effort to get something out of his mouth. 

“This is Scott,” Freckles said, wrestling over the second boy in the group by the shoulders, “and his fiancée Allison.” 

“Derek,” Derek introduced, firmly shaking Scott’s hand and nodding respectfully to Allison. This explained their dynamic onstage, as it was so vastly different from that of Freckles and the last girl. 

“And here’s the beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, fantastic – have you got a thesaurus? – Lydia.” He swooped in to kiss her cheek only to be shoved away with a flawlessly manicured hand. “Isn’t she lovely? If you fight me on that, you’ll lose.” 

“I wasn’t... planning on it,” Derek said a bit cluelessly. 

“And this one is Stiles,” Freckles said, pointing to himself. “Sorry we couldn’t do this all earlier, there was a lot of warming up to do.” 

Derek nodded, as he had needed some of his own too, but said nothing. Luckily, Stiles proved himself to be the kind of person whose primary function was to fill up those spaces. 

“Hey, do you want to join us for some drinks?” Stiles asked. “Erica said they’re on the house for us, I’m sure she’d be willing to extend the invitation to one more.” 

Free drinks sounded amazing, especially since he’d blow most of what he’d made here tonight if he had to pay for anything himself. La Luna was one of the more expensive venues on the west coast. Derek reminded himself to nod. “Yes. I would,” he added to up his word count. 

“Great! We’ll meet you down at the bar.” 

Derek hadn’t at all planned on staying longer than he needed to, but free drinks and meeting again with Erica sounded promising. Not to mention it was a chance to hang out with people more famous than himself. He hoped it wasn’t too much wishful thinking on his part to imagine gaining connections through anyone who worked here. Derek had found through observation that success lay within a combination of talent and favors. 

Figuring he could return to his room afterwards to pick up his belongings, Derek headed to the bar in the hopes that he could find them before the rest of the La Luna crowd swarmed them with autograph requests. 

“There you are, Hale!” a voice piped over the music. An arm made its way around Derek’s shoulders. “I have your check.” 

Derek took the envelope gratefully. The fact that they could now pay this month’s rent and the next month’s in advance was a weight lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you, Erica.” 

“And yes, you can have a few drinks on the house,” she said, though her arms folded. “But we need to talk, got a minute?” 

Derek’s features settled into a frown on all bases but he nodded attentively. 

“The songs you performed were great and they matched your voice nicely, and if you come up with some new, maybe even some original material, we can work something out that involves you coming back for another gig. _But!_ ” she said quickly, holding a finger out to shush words that weren’t even coming — they were all clogging his throat at the moment — “I have some critiques for you and until these things are fixed I can’t have you back on. And why, you’re probably asking? Because right now, as you are, you can’t perform. You’re not loose, you’re not limber, everything is tight-lipped and tense about you. You _have_ to let the audience in if you’re going to reach them. But when I saw you out there tonight you looked like a rock that made some pretty noises. I know it’s your first big show but settle down, take some half pills if you need to. Got all that?” 

Derek kept his lips tight together. “Got it.” 

“Great. I’ve gotta find Scott, see you.” 

Erica brushed past him, leaving Derek at the center of an empty floorspace with nothing but emotional bruises. The promise of a future gig if he got over his nerves only intensified his anxieties. 

Count to ten– 

Screw it. 

Derek turned with full intention to pack up what little belongings he’d brought and find his way back home early, skipping the bar gathering, when he bumped headfirst into Stiles. For Stiles it was more of a head-to-chin collision and he stumbled back but didn’t quite fall. 

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you could poke someone’s eye out!” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Derek growled, storming past. A pair of frantic hands stopped him as Stiles tried to bodily get in his way. 

“Hey hey, where you goin’? Bar’s down there...” 

“Home. I have things to work on, evidently.” 

“Finally, big words!” Stiles hurried to fix himself when Derek began to walk off again. “Didn’t mean it, kidding, c’mon. Join us for drinks, maybe you’ll forget about whatever it is and loosen up.” 

Derek’s nostrils flared. “I don’t _need_ to loosen up,” he strained. 

Stiles puffed a laugh. “Uh huh, _yeah_ you do!” Derek glared viciously until the dancer’s mouth clicked shut. 

“I’m going home.” 

“Wait! Come on...” 

Stiles jogged after him steadily as Derek returned to the performers’ hallway. He could smell the alcohol thick like fog already and it disgusted him. Just the overwhelming presence of it brought up all-too-vivid images of Uncle Peter with a square glass of scotch and rocks in hand. His ways of coming up with money when the Hales were short were unsavory, but maybe Derek should have joined him ages ago if he’d known he couldn’t perform worth a damn. 

Stiles waited until Derek reached his room to shove his way in with him and close the door. “All right, really. Tell me what’s up.” 

“Nothing’s ‘up.’” 

“I don’t know you or anything so I know it’s probably not my business but did something just happen?” Derek glanced up to see an expression of concern that didn’t quite fit Stiles’ features. A gruff sigh left him as he fell halfway into his chair. Stiles planted himself on the corner of the vanity table. 

“Erica sort of dropped the bomb.” 

“What kind of bomb?” 

“Think of the soul-crushing kind.” 

“Erica and soul-crushing go hand in hand, you’ve gotta be more specific.” 

Derek pursed his lips and huffed. “She said I can only come back to perform again if I... loosen up. Said I’m too tense. Called me a rock that made pretty noise.” 

Stiles whistled. “Ouch. Hey, but I noticed too.” A stubbly frown. “Okay, that didn’t help. So you need to get loose, it’s not like she tanked your career! All you need is practice, right?” 

“What’s the point if there’s nothing to practice for, huh?” 

“That’s no way to talk,” Stiles puffed. His hand found Derek’s shoulder. He looked deep into his eyes, noticing a pale hazel, while Derek found two rounds of chocolate and caramel. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great singer.” 

Derek grumbled. “You’re just saying that.” 

“Am not! Oh, y’know what helps me loosen up? ... C’mon, say what.” 

“What.” 

Stiles grinned. “Dancing!” 

Derek’s jaw sharpened. “I am not dancing.” 

“Hey, that’s a great idea! Loosen you up with dancing!” 

“Stiles, I can’t dance!” 

“You said, to a professional dancer! Say, what if I teach you?” 

“No.” Derek had had enough of this. He pulled off his jacket, moved to change into his chardonnay-stained shirt, and thought better of it. But he started to put his first change of clothes away on the hanger and into the dry-cleaning bag. 

“I’ll do it, and I’ll do it for free, too! D’you know how much anyone else would pay for what I’m offering you? Wait, I can give you my card– except I don’t have a card. Got something for me to write on?” Stiles spotted a napkin on the table and grabbed it. Pen out of jacket in a flash, he wrote on the napkin and stuffed it into Derek’s pocket. “There you go.” 

“Why are you trying to help me?” 

“Why not?” 

“Because I’m an opening act singer you just met who’s probably a lost cause.” 

“Not for long!” Stiles laughed as he flung the door open. “Right, now that that’s settled, are you gonna join us for free drinks or what?”

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies—this fic has been discontinued.


End file.
